I've been playing a number of the pokemon games with modded starters as well as beating the game with only a singular pokemon (sans HM slaves). Sometimes the experience goes over well, some planning is required once I decide on who I am to use. The hardest challenge in any gen will always be taking a Magikarp or ditto for a starter. Not only do both of them have extremely limited move sets, they have poor stats and ditto's gimmick doesn't isn't very useful overall.

>>11686
>beating the game with only a singular pokemon
Isn't that basically the easiest possible way to beat the games? How is that a challenge?

I don't know where to post this

>>11698
If you choose to further restrict it with things like not allowing evolution, the difficulty can increase greatly. It'd also be worth noting that it's typical to not use items mid-battle either. Sure, you can just grind to oblivion, but that can be made a challenge by choosing a pokemon in the slow EXP category.

>>11768
Perhaps they made later entries more challenging, I just remember Red/Blue being a complete joke when you play through with your starter. Even the enemies most resistant to its attack types go down easy from all the built-up level from fighting everything with it.

>>11801
red/blue have their fair amount of challenge, but is overlooked by the numerous bugs and oversights by the devs. They are by far the most broken mainline mon games for a great number of reasons. Naturally, starters are meant to have good stats so they don't feel weaker compared to what you'd normally find in the wild. So overleveling your starter can make the game quite trivial, especially if they've got good moves. Type coverage isn't much of a worry. Red/blue is also made very easy with any psychic type as they have no weakness in practice and have good stats all around. DPP (my favorite gen) is made trivial by only ever leveling chimchar, as infernape has good speed and attacking stats and a good move pool. Not to mention, almost all of the gyms are weak to it's STAB moves. The most difficult run that one can do is to do a run with a gimmick pokemon, like ditto or wobbufet or something that is incredibly weak, like magikarp or shedninja.

Getting close to a one-life clear of Mr. Driller. 3500-4500ft is fucking brutal.